Improved Energy Management for Internet Data Centers

Case Study

Improved Energy Management for Internet Data Centers

Overview

The modern internet is powered and supported by data centers of various sizes. The largest data centers, called Tier 4, are warehouse-sized and contain thousands of machines. The power requirements of these data centers are immense, and attempts to achieve optimal Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) must take into account the absolute need for consistent and reliable power, as well as the huge potential cost of downtime due to outages. In recent years Power Management Systems (PMS) have brought the ability to access real-time temperature and power status information, and to make adjustments as necessary across the entire facility. read more

The Challenge

In the PMS application lower level, the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system provides real-time monitoring of a vast array of serial power meters and PLCs, and automatically takes action when a warning message is received. At the upper level, PSM servers and Open Platform Communication (OPC) servers use Modbus TCP and SNMP to monitor both the power meters and the status of all Ethernet switches. Reliable communication for this system is paramount, so a hardened solution with dependable network redundancy is required. read more